1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to microprocessors, and more particularly, to an STI instruction that explicitly indicates that a store instruction is being utilized to modify instruction space in a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The present invention relates to two concepts discussed herein: multiple-thread processing and instruction sets. Regarding multiple-thread processing, an automated system for various processing applications may handle multiple events or processes concurrently. A single process is termed a thread of control, or “thread”, and is the basic unit of operation of independent dynamic action within the system. A program has at least one thread. A system performing concurrent operations typically has many threads, some of which are transitory and others enduring. Single-processor systems can only have illusory concurrent threads, typically attained by time-slicing of processor execution, shared among a plurality of threads. Systems that execute among multiple processors allow for true concurrent threads.
Some programming languages are particularly designed to support multiple-threading. One such language is the Java™ programming language that is advantageously executed using an abstract computing machine, the Java Virtual Machine™. A Java Virtual Machine™ is capable of supporting multiple threads of execution at one time. The multiple threads independently execute Java code that operates on Java values and objects residing in a shared main memory. The multiple threads may be supported using multiple hardware processors, by time-slicing a single hardware processor, or by time-slicing many hardware processors. In 1990 programmers at Sun Microsystems developed a universal programming language, eventually known as “the Java™ programming language”. Java™, Sun, Sun Microsystems and the Sun Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks, including UltraSPARC I and UltraSPARC II, are used under license and are trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.